Peter's Useful Crap

Guest post by Kristian

I was asked by Peter to write some useful crap about Google Earth, since i keep talking about it all the time. So here it comes

Google Earth 4 is a brilliant piece of software for exploring the globe. Wikipedia says:

Google Earth is a virtual globe program that was originally called Earth Viewer and was created by Keyhole, Inc. It maps the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS over a 3D globe

This does not sound very exciting, but it is In addition to the very nice imagery, it also has an excellent system that allows anyone to add additional information relevant to what you are looking at, called layers.

Google Earth comes with a lot of layers out of the box. Geotagged images are one of my favorites. I have used this on a few occasions to find attractions before traveling to a new place. If you are going somewhere you have never been before, turn on the “Panoramio” layer and start looking at your destination.

This layer shows a little icon on the map where people have taken images and uploaded them to Panoramio. Where there are attractions there are normally lots of uploaded images, and this is easily identifiable as a cluster of icons.

Here is an small cut out from Oslo, Norway (click to view a bigger image):

If you look to the top left side of the screen, there are a lot of circular icons seemingly separated from the rest of the images taken in that area. This makes us curious! The neat thing is that we can now click on the icons to see the pictures that have been taken at that location. If I click on one of the icons, I get a screen like this (click to view a bigger image):

Very nice. By clicking on a few images, we realize that we have now discovered a park called “Vigelandsparken” which contains a lot of stone and metal statues. (And it’s a nice park — I’ve been there.) By looking around like this you get a good feeling of interesting new places to visit

In addition to the layers that comes with Google Earth, you can also load additional ones. One example is geotagged Flickr images from around the globe.

If you want to see a lot of more interesting layers/plugins for Google Earth, there is a lot of good ones on Google Earth Hacks. For example, here are all the buildings in downtown Vancouver in 3D!

I didn’t want to make the post title too long… but really it’s best to bring reusable containers to all food places. Consider the waste of a styrofoam plate, styrofoam container or any other disposable container for that matter. It’s most sickening when I go to a food court at lunch time. Sure, it’s easy to say “that’s the way it is” and “I have no choice” (I’ve been saying it all my life). Well, you do have a choice. We all do. And please don’t say that it’s not cool to bring a container.

If you are going to be taking food with you (take-out food or leftovers) you can bring your own container and put the food in there. So add that to your list of things you can do to contribute to sustaining the planet.

And now for a nice food review to make the environmental post more interesting…

Today I went to Trees Organic, a nice little coffee shop, to find out whether their cheesecake really is “the best in Vancouver” — as they claim with a big sign on the window. Trees Organic is at Granville and Hastings in Vancouver, BC (450 Granville Street, to be exact) for anyone who wants to test this claim themselves.

Photo taken by Kristian

I gave them my tupperware container and they were happy to put the raspberry cheesecake slice in there. As you can see above, I forced myself to stop halfway through to document this occasion. The cheesecake was rich and delicious. It certainly ranks as one of the best cheesecakes I’ve tried. It isn’t cheap — at $6.35 after tax it costs about the same as a few homemade sandwiches. But it gets bonus points for being a relatively environmentally-friendly indulgence and hey, it’s not like eating cheesecake ought to be a regular occasion for anybody!

When I got home, I washed the tupperware container as I normally would have, since it had previously contained my lunch.

April 5th update
Today I went to the Pita Express in the Waterfront Centre Food Court (Vancouver) and brought my own plate and fork. Yes, it is nerdy to walk with a plate on the street, but I asked them to put my order on my plate and they did so with a smile. Plus, my food (their chicken pita with caesar salad special) tasted good.

I took French immersion up until grade 12, but I’m quite the number of years removed from the days of daily French conversation. In other words, I am slowly becoming uni-lingual.

So, what better thing to occupy my (many) hours on transit than some French learning audio tapes! In this day and age, we’re all about mp3s, so armed with a search engine and a cheapo mp3 player from eBay, I was off in search of some good French audio tuition in mp3! Unfortunately, all the free classes I found were much too basic and didn’t really cover much (nothing wrong with that, but just not for me).

Luckily I eventually stumbled upon FrenchPodClass! FrenchPodClass is a weekly series of downloadable mp3 French lessons. I’ve already gone through a few lessons and they’re fun and free. (Side note: the term “podcast” simply refers to an mp3 file.)

Each class is usually between 25 and 35 minutes. There are skits, vocabulary and grammar lessons, musical interludes (I’ve already got “Si j’avais un marteau” stuck in my head), games, movie reviews, and all sorts of fun stuff. As of April 1st, there have been 75 lessons already. I started at lesson #50; having taken French immersion, there’s enough new stuff / stuff I’ve forgotten to keep me interested but it’s not too advanced to turn me away. Sebastien, the creator of FrenchPodClass has a very friendly delivery, and does not seem to go through each class’s material too fast or too slow. And if he did, hey, you can just rewind and play it again. For the real keeners, there are even transcripts, lesson reviews, and exercises to download.

Here’s my lesson for you (that I stole from FrenchPodClass hehehe): “Ca coute les yeux de la tete” is the French equivalent of “It costs an arm and a leg”. For FrenchPodClass all you need is an mp3 player (on a computer or portable) and a willingness to learn and have fun!

So, check out FrenchPodClass, start at the beginning or in the middle, and hopefully no matter what learning level you’re at, there’ll be something for you! I hope that Sebastien continues to produce such high quality lessons (and thanks for creating FrenchPodClass)!

Edit: OK, I’ve moved the FAQ and started a separate site to hold 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless information since I seem to be always writing about it…

It won’t win any design awards, but hopefully it can serve as a sort of resource centre for this service.

http://www.speakoutwireless.ca

I never enjoy bashing a product, but hey, if someone’s unsure about whether they should buy a product, they ought to be able to read about other user experiences instead of relying solely on the slick marketing flyers for information! I did a Google search for this product and found no reviews!

My parents bought these Digisonic wireless headphones (two pairs) and I had the pleasure of setting them up and testing them out. Setup was easy — you plug the transmitter into the audio source, whether that’s a television, stereo, or other audio product. Then you turn both the transmitter and headphones on and poof — wireless sound (in theory). I tested this out both on a TV and a computer and had a similar experience on both.

Here’s what the flyer claims and my corresponding comments:

-Crystal clear listening for hard to hear words and voices: at full volume on the headphones and medium volume on the source, I had to strain to hear anything through the headphones, and there was a static buzz.

-Perfect for those with slight, medium or extreme hearing difficulties: I don’t have any hearing difficulties (yet) but unless I cranked the volume on the source, the sound was quite poor.

-Volume control located on the headset: Yes, this is true.

-Transmits up to 100′: This is perhaps true if there is an absolutely clear line of sight between the headphones and the transmitter. And it might “transmit” but it certainly won’t “transmit well”. The moment I walked into the adjacent room (which doesn’t have any wireless interference) the static noise hurt my ears and was unbearable. In fact, while in the same room as the transmitter, if I moved my arms around or even moved my head, the static would rear its noisy… head?

-Sets up in minutes: Yes, this is true. But if you are trying to figure out what’s wrong with the product and the poor sound quality for a while, this is not true.

-No cords to tangle of trip over: Yes, this is true. But the terrible quality of these headphones might make you wish for corded headphones.

So my parents bought this so that one could watch TV and not disturb the other (if sleeping or something). Note that for most televisions, if you mute the sound on the built-in TV speakers, you’ll also be muting the “audio out” jacks. Thus you have to hope that the headphones can amplify a soft TV sound to achieve this “do not disturb” goal. This is not feasible with the Digisonic wireless headphones.

I urged my parents to return the product for a refund. Since they bought two headphones, I assume that it is unlikely to be a random product defect on that end. It could very well be a defective transmitter, but at this point I believe it to simply be a poor product.

Do you have a positive (or negative) story to share about these headphones? Post a comment!